1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electronic systems, and relates more particularly to a system and method for automatic task prioritization.
2. Description of the Background Art
Many organizations are under a constant barrage of interactions with customers, suppliers, partners, and others. These organizations typically have a limited number of resources to process all of the incoming information and tasks in a timely manner. This problem is exacerbated when the interactions occur via multiple channels and over a wide geographic area. An organization may receive and send information via telephone, facsimile, electronic mail, and other electronic communication forms.
Incoming interactions may be processed on a first-come, first-served basis. This approach may be adequate for some organizations, when the quantity of interactions is relatively small. However, for organizations that process a large number of interactions, an interaction that requires an immediate resolution or response may be delayed due to the number of interactions ahead of it in the system. This and other limitations may prevent the organization from providing excellent service.
Similar to a hospital emergency room, incoming information and tasks may be triaged, whereby items having higher priorities than the others are processed first. Typically, an agent determines which information and tasks are more important and prioritizes them accordingly. When an organization processes hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of interactions a day, efficiently prioritizing the information and tasks at hand likely requires a large number of agents. However, a large number of agents is no assurance that information and tasks will be prioritized efficiently and accurately. Thus, a system and method for automatic task prioritization is needed.
The present invention provides a system and method to automatically prioritize tasks. The invention includes one or more task queues, a monitoring module, and a decision engine. The decision engine receives tasks and assigns a priority code to each task. A task may be an action that is to be performed by an agent or an electronic system. Alternatively, a task may be a piece of data that must be acted upon in some fashion, for example a news item received by a news service or a piece of intelligence data received by an intelligence gathering organization.
In one embodiment, the decision engine includes a task parser that analyzes and parses each task into concepts and relationships between the concepts. In one embodiment, the task parser includes a natural language processor for parsing text-based tasks expressed in natural language.
Each task is inserted into the task queue or queues according to its priority code and the priority codes of other tasks which may be present in the task queue. Agents select tasks to perform from the task queues according to priority guidelines established by a system user. The monitoring module monitors the order of the tasks selected by the agents and each task""s priority code. The monitoring module feeds back this information to the decision module.
In one embodiment, the decision module is a learning system that uses feedback from the monitoring module to update stored priority data. The decision module learns the priority guidelines of the system user by learning from the order in which agents select tasks from the task queue. Thus, a system user may adjust its priority guidelines and, based on the selections of the agents, the decision engine will automatically update its priority data.
In another embodiment, the decision engine may be a rule-based system that prioritizes tasks according to a predetermined set of rules. In this embodiment, a change in the system user""s priority guidelines requires changes to the rules of the decision engine. In a further embodiment of the invention, the decision engine may include a rule-based system that is supplemented by a learning system. In this embodiment, rules may be used to determine priorities of tasks until the learning system has received sufficient feedback to make priority decisions, or the rules may establish general guidelines that are further reined by feedback.